This is a review for my fight blog of my experience at the 2010 West Coast Can-Am Martial Arts Tournament, held at BCIT, on May 31.

As always, I fight to blog and blog to fight. So I entered the 2010 West Coast Can-Am Martial Arts Tournament, held at BCIT, on May 31. Turned out to be an interesting experience. I had trained almost every day, for the last month, but wasn’t able to do any sparring, since the gym where I train is undergoing renovations. But I managed to go from 206 to 197 in a month, which is good weight loss and I achieved my fitness goal.

I checked in to weigh in on Saturday, and though I was 199.0 at home before coming in, I had to strip down to my underwear to weigh exactly 200 on the Detector scale. I left wondering how many people have stepped on it before me.

On Sunday I arrived at about 1:30. From that point on I found that I either made mistakes, wrong assumptions, or would encounter difficulties that would make it uncertain for a while if I was going to get a fight at all.

It turns out I would be totally on my own for the tournament, and I had to start by gathering information. Tournaments have to have a lot of reorganization on the fly and so I ended up making enquiries at a stressful time for everybody. I was told I missed a noon briefing and was then told I needed to be re-weighed because yesterday’s weights meant nothing. It also seemed that my division may have gone and I may not be fortunate enough to get one fight in at all. The order was to wait, not to go anywhere, and something might get figured out. I had unintentionally pissed off one of the organizers with my questions, but I fell back on the martial arts way of showing respect and not taking it personally, just be patient. My patience was rewarded by one of the organizers finding another guy, and only one other guy in my division: Stephen, a junior with 3 yrs exp. From Posner’s.

2010 West Coast Can-Ams

We kept an eye on each other because we weren’t sure if we were going to get a fight or not. Which was kind of funny, and typical for the day, because there was more confilict outside of the combat zone than in it.

Amateur Muay Thai (modified)

Lots of time would then pass but in the mean time I hear that our fight would be a match for Gold and Silver medals, which are handed out even when there are only two competitors in a given division. Next thing I hears was that being a final round fight, it would be in the Gionco boxing ring. So there I was, set up for a ring fight, after being late, only partially prepared, and nobody in my corner. However I did find Justin, a BJJ competitor from my gym to take a few photos. None of the other kickboxers came to the tournament, despite talk to the contrary.

So there I am in the ring, ready to go… oh, I needed knee pads. I went out of the ring, asked anybody for knee pads. Somebody lent me a pair, to the lady fighter that did, thanks! I left them on the judges table, hope you found them. So Stephen was a better clincher than me, I gave lots of body shots, a few knees, got caught in the clinch and kneed a few times too many but I kept with it through the fight which is what I was hoping to do. It was like a good sparring session. I pulled an illegal trip, I fell down a couple times; I would have been better overall if I had sparred but I have to just accept how it went down. He who trains more wins more.

2010 West Coast Can-Ams

So I got a silver medal out of the deal. Which I guess I got because I did all the training I could, I showed up when other guys from my gym didn’t… and went through it all on my own; made a handful of preparatory mistakes, and I hadn’t sparred in over a month. Despite it all I stuck it out. And then, on top of it all, a ring fight. But the fight went off really well all things considered and who cares about what else didn’t go to plan as long as the fighters are well matched they actually get a fight after waiting around all day.

Its a funny way to win a medal, considering that lots of tough fighters didn’t win a medal that day. But this is possible in organized fighting. Later, there would be a top-level Muay Thai fight between a fighter from Canada against a guy from China. An illegal elbow strike to the head scraped open the Chinese fighters head and this would bring an end to the fight.

The judges would rule it no contest, and both fighters would be treated as winners and awarded these 4 foot tall trophies as a souvenir to commemorate such an auspicious occasion. That is to say that in a fight, one or the other can win or lose, but also, both can win, or lose, and even be in a state of victory and loss simultaneously. For one, its a trophy for a fight they deserved to win. For the other, it will be a trophy that shouldnt be there, but serves as a reminder every time he looks at it that he must not make use of illegal strikes.

I was talking after with a couple other fighters in the change room. One guy was not happy losing his fight, because everyone else from his gym had won their fights. The other guy said, “…you know, if you don’t lose you don’t learn anything… wish there was another way but there doesn’t seem to be….” Dude was right. How much is a tournament going to result going to matter in the world anyway? It gets done and you move on with your life.

At a martial arts tournament, there are other obstacles and adversities to negotiate around. There is the organization’s level of ability to operate the tournament. A large number of competitors can prolong the day. A smaller number means on the spot reorganization as well, when divisions are collapsed into one another, just so paying competitors can get a match in. I even heard by way of Olivia, the blogger at Girls Who Grapple, that a girl in submission grappling from Universal entered in the guys category and won a couple of medals. Really impressive, but that’s alright, because technique is supposed to trump power in BJJ combat. So in light of the work of the organizers to make the event happen, I kept in mind that my problems were smaller than theirs. If I had a hard time, I just have to think about what Justin had to go through. Justin had been at the gym since 8:30 AM. His fight wouldn’t happen until about 5:30. And then in one match, he had to tap out to a rear naked choke. Fighting, sometimes, truly is organized chaos.

There are lots of great shots from this day in my Flickr.com Pool

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